platform dependencies
 

Hi. I'm totally new to Linux and my knowledge of Windows is largely limited to end-user applications like MSFT Excel & Access. I'm going to be partitioning my hard drive to be used for both Linux & Windows. I was going to have

a partition for Linux
a partition for Windows
a partition for files for use with Linux
a partition for files for use with Windows

And a final partition, if necessary, for files to be used in both OSs. So my question is this. Are there going to be certain files, data and programs that will be used on both platforms?

No. Linux is not Windows (or vice-versa), and they share nothing. You can copy DATA files (word documents, spreadsheets, MP3's, etc.), between the two, but the OS and applications are totally separate.

On a related note, you don't have to create a 'share' partition. Linux will automatically see and work with your Windows partition. However, Windows is not able to do anything with most other OS'es, without some serious jiggling. Go figure.

I share photos, music, videos, and documents between Windows and Linux quite often. I find the easiest way to do it is to create a partition in a format that both Windows and Linux can read (I use vfat), and store anything I want to share in that partition. Or, you could just store any shared files on the Windows partition (presumably nfts), as virtually all Linux distros include the software required to read and write such partitions.